A Drive Through the Desert
by EternallyDisappointed
Summary: A brief continuation of Half-Life Blue Shift. I may eventually come back to this, but probably not. Heavily inspired by rednightmare's Black Coffee.
1. Chapter 1

Her father carried Alyx to the loading lot, where Drs. Magnusson and Rosenberg lurked beside an unfamiliar white van, spouting angry technical jargon and pacing with folded arms, respectively. Dr. Kleiner just tapped at a locked gate with a crowbar.

"Eli," Dr. Rosenberg called. Dr. Kleiner turned abruptly.

"Azian?" he asked.

Alyx's father shook his head.

"There's nothing we can do?"

"Just get us away from here."

"Put her in the car then."

Her dad put her on one hip and pulled the door on the back seat open.

"We're waiting on Calhoun," Dr. Rosenberg said, scratching his goatee. "Though I worry he might be stuck in an infinite..."

"What?" Magnusson demanded, turning sharply. "We're waiting? Why? When this gate is opened I have no intention of staying here in the hope that some sweating military grunt puts a shotgun to my head."

"Now that we have the child," Dr. Kleiner added gently, "we do have additional responsibility."

Her dad put Alyx in the center of the car and quietly slunk off to the driver's side.

"Without Calhoun we'd all be dying of heat stroke in train cars. He deserves..."

And a brilliant green flash of light blinded them all, and from the light one of the nameless generic guards stumbled forward. He shook so badly he hardly seems aware of it.

"Thank god you made it," Dr. Rosenberg said. "We were just..." and here he glanced at Magnusson "...talking about you. We were afraid you might have been caught in an infinite harmonic reflex. If such is the case, then you're quite lucky to..."

"I saw him." The guard leaned up against the van. His helmet sat at a strange angle, but only Alyx noticed when he pulled it back down. "Freeman. Soldiers got him."

Everyone fell silent. Dr. Magnusson swiveled between everyone.

"So?" he demanded. "If this car isn't out of the complex soon we'll be every bit as dead as he."

"Lambda had all their hopes on him." Dr. Kleiner glanced at Eli, but, now in the driver's seat, Dr. Vance only stared out the window. "Without him the complex will surely..."

"It doesn't matter now," Rosenberg said. "All we can do is keep moving." He slung an arm around Calhoun's shoulders and moved him toward the car. "You're looking a little peaked, Mr. Calhoun. We'll see what we have to... Oh, wait."

He'd moved to take Calhoun's helmet, and Calhoun dropped into the backseat as everyone else stared. At the hairline, just above his right eye, was a matted patch of bloody hair.

"Soldiers broke in after you were gone." Calhoun's voice was monotone and dead. "I think they're all dead. Can't be sure."

Rosenberg waved Kleiner and Magnusson toward the car. "Maybe you should lie down in the back. I think you're likely to have an adrenaline crash before long. And Mr. Calhoun?"

"Barney. Please."

"Barney... if you don't mind my asking, what kind of first aid have you been giving yourself?"

They were interrupted by Kleiner sliding into the car. He stuffed his crowbar beneath the seat, and Alyx climbed into his lap.

Without a word, Barney reached into both front pockets and pulled handfuls of epinephrine needles.

"Jesus!" Rosenberg climbed into the backseat but remained on his knees, looking back into the trunk. "How many of these have you taken?"

Barney shook his head and shrugged. The car lurched forward, and the epi-pens fell from his hands. Alyx peeked her head up over the seat and watched them go.

"I raided the first aid station as well," Rosenberg admitted. "Splints... morphine... bandages. Does your head need...? No? Ice packs, probably useless. And... what's this? Cyclobenzaprine? Damn, they were ready for anything. Listen, Calhoun-Barney-we'll try this first We've only got so much morphine and god only knows when we'll need muscle relaxants."

"Relaxers," Magnusson corrected from the front seat.

"I don't really need anything," Barney said.

"When's the last time you slept?"

Barney said nothing.

"That's what I thought. These'll knock you out for a while. Anyway, morphine I know interacts with epinephrine. Cyclobenza... I don't think this does. Do you know, Arne?"

Magnusson flung up his hands.

"Who has water? It's a terrible idea to swallow these dry."

Kleiner, the only one in the backseat to still face forward, handed back a canteen. Barney took it and as he swallowed his eyes met Alyx's. It seemed to startle them both so that they kept staring, a little girl, barely four years old and now motherless, and a young security guard, blinking obsessively the right eye as the torn-up patch of hair leaked blood in a stream down his face.

"They'll more than likely knock you out for a while."

Barney nodded slowly, still staring blankly past Alyx. "I guess that'll be... I haven't slept since it all happened."

"Too long," Rosenberg pronounced. "That's... why, it must have been nearly..."

They all looked at one another, trying to count back on disrupted sleep cycles, missed sunrises, tram rides left untaken. Eventually Kleiner got the idea to check his PDA. As it turned out, it was May 20th, four days from the resonance cascade.


	2. Chapter 2

They didn't stop once, not even when little Alyx threw up on everyone. The darkness came on the tail of another gorgeous desert sunset. Eli left the lights off and said not a word, not even when Rosenberg offered to take the wheel.

"It must be difficult, about Azian, I mean. You really should be with your daughter"

Alyx had long ago dozed off on Kleiner's lap. Barney had been out cold for hours, and Magnusson snored in the front seat. Eli continued to drive.

"Eli, I want to help. What can I do?"

"Get us out of here."

Rosenberg was about to answer when the windshield was filled with blinding light and Eli slammed so hard on the brakes that Kleiner was jolted out of a sound sleep and barely able to grab Alyx before she was thrown off his lap.

Beyond the brightness was a jeep they barely managed to avoid. And now, shilloutted against the light, a strip of darkness grew wider and became recognizeable as a single marine.

The van stopped, and even Magnusson snorted himself awake.

"All right," the soldier shouted, and his SMG was aimed right between Eli's eyes. "Everyone out of the car. Now."

Magnusson grumbled to himself. "Neanderthal."

Without a word Eli undid his seatbelt and stepped out of the car.

As he climbed from the car Dr. Rosenberg glanced into the trunk. Barney was still passed out, bundled in a heap near the back of the van.

"Where you eggheads coming from?" the soldier demanded, eying the lab coats and name tags. When he received no answer he grabbed the name tag on Eli's chest and yanked it from its clip. Holding it up to the light he grinned. "Hey, my buddies from Black Mesa! So which one of you is Freeman?"

Magnusson opened his mouth, then thought better of speaking.

"We haven't seen Freeman," Rosenberg said. "He's from the Lambda Complex. I've never even met him."

"Bullshit. One of you knows."

Kleiner, with Alyx clinging to him like a monkey, moved a little closer to Magnusson.

"Please," he said quietly. "We have a child."

"I don't fucking care," the marine screamed, firing toward them. He pulled the trigger long before moving the gun, and Eli's leg buckled. It was difficult to see in the light, but bodies scrambled and bumped into one another and toppled to the ground. Within seconds the clip was emptied and the marine ejected it violently.

"I want Freeman," he screamed. The empty jeep behind him had never been more obvious. "Right now, or I'll shoot the brat next."

"He's still at Black Mesa," Kleiner pleaded.

"I'm giving you five seconds and then I'm painting this goddamn wasteland with your brains. Five... four... three..."

His mouth opened to form something, probably "two," but instead the back of the marine's head exploded in a rain of blood and a sickening crunch. He toppled forward and left behind him Barney. Barney too slid down to a sit, rubbing at his eye and then his mouth, with seemingly no recognition of the now brain-spattered crowbar still in his hand.

"Hey," he said. "We got any more water? I'm parched."


End file.
